Saturday, April 6, 2013

Goya. Light and Shade

Between 16 March and 24 June, 2012 visitors to the CaixaForum in Barcelona could see Goya: Light and Shade, a major exhibition devoted to the artist’s work organised by the Museo del Prado and Obra Social “la Caixa” as the result of a collaborative agreement signed by the two institutions last year.

and I am still learning, meaning that for the first time in thirty years a large and outstanding selection of Goya’s work from the Museo del Prado was presented in Catalonia.

The richness of the Prado’s holdings of Goya, which can almost be described as a separate museum within the Museum, allows for major exhibitions that fully reflect his oeuvre. A chronological presentation revealed all the facets of Goya’s art and the principal phases of his career. The exhibition ranged from his early years, in which his realist style contrasted with the elaborate Rococo of his contemporaries, up to the highly personal works produced in Bordeaux at the end of his life and encompassed the drama of the Peninsular War that marked a turning point in his career.

The exhibition was structured into fifteen self-sufficient sections that constitute short visual accounts which analyze many of the principal themes that recur throughout the artist’s oeuvre and reflect the social reality of the times in which Goya lived, defined by the monarchy and aristocracy and by intellectuals and friends of the artist.

3. Preparatory drawing for Capricho 43 "Sueño 1. Universal Language. Drawn and engraved by Francisco de Goya in the year 1797. The author dreaming. His only intention is to banish harmful common bekiefs and to perpetuate with this work of caprichos the sound testimony of truth
Pencil and ink on paper, 24.7 x 17.2 cm
1797
2. Invention and Execution. Social critique in the tapestry cartoons

62. Preparatory drawing for Tauromaquia 21. Dreadful incidents which occured in the front rows of the ring at Madrid, and death of the mayor of Torrejon
Paper, 18.5 x 30 cm
1815 - 1816

63. Tauromaquia 21. Dreadful incidents which occured in the front rows of the ring at Madrid, and death of the mayor of Torrejon
Etching, 24.5 x 35.5 cm
1816 (first edition)
10. Nightmares. Madness and the irrational in the Album C drawings

64. Another [Vision] in the Same Night. Album C, 40
Watercolour and ink on paper, 20.5 x 14.1 cm
1803 - 1824

65. The Third [Vision] in the Same [Night]. Album C, 41
Watercolour and ink on paper, 20.5 x 14.1 cm
1803 - 1824